Video Breakthroughs

Last week I read through over 3,000 posts in my RSS feeds covering news from the CES show. I've sorted through all the noise, stripped out all the releases about WiFi washing machines (seriously), and condensed it down to bring you the most important topics pertaining directly to the streaming and online video industry.

Visitors to CES and the Detroit Auto Show can sample 5.1 surround sound streamed at only 64 kbps bandwidth. That’s because those are the two locations where Fraunhofer is publicly debuting its MPEG Surround audio codec.

Surround sound audio typically takes 160- to 400 kbps for a stream, notes a Fraunhofer representative, but with MPEG Surround the requirement is far less. That gives content providers the ability to stream to new locations, such as cars using a 3G connection.

Interactive TV technology provider Rovi is using the CES show in Las Vegas to unveil an update to its Rovi Entertainment Store, the company’s white-label product for over-the-top storefront creation and management.

This new version will offer software development kits to streamline customer storefront launches, features including DivX Plus Streaming to help enhance the consumer viewing experience, and support for companies that wish to introduce UltraViolet-compatible services.

ACCESS, a global provider of advanced software technologies to the mobile, beyond-PC and digital TV markets, today announced the availability of NetFront Browser NX 2.0 DTV Profile, an advanced new WebKit-based HTML5 browser that features extremely efficient memory usage, high stability, high portability and comprehensive support for DTV and IPTV standards including HbbTV, BBC iPlayer, major video-on-demand (VoD) services in Japan and CE-HTML.

Key features

- HTML5 support - Audio/Video tag, Canvas 2D, Web Workers, Web Storage, WebSocket and WebGL

- CSS3 support, CSS3 3D Transforms, Transitions and Animations

- HbbTV, BBC iPlayer

Using a single XCode 4210 System on Chip (SoC), Wistron has created a feature-rich family of products which offer one of the smallest form factor and lowest power Blu-ray / Media Hubs on the market today.

The products offer consumers a combination Blu-Ray player solution with the ability to simultaneously transcode media content for increased storage space, media format conversion, and multi-screen support to devices such as smartphones and tablets.

These Media Hub products also include rich graphical user interfaces (GUI), 3D TV support, media storage, media management and controlled media streaming.

Product features include:

- Video content streaming with integrated adaptive Transcoding for Multi-Screen support

- Video content side-loading with integrated Transcoding

...

Trickplay and Audible Magic today announced a technology partnership that will make Audible Magic’s industry-leading automated content recognition (ACR) solutions an integral part of Trickplay’s digital TV software platform. Based on Audible Magic’s patented digital fingerprint content identification technology, the company’s SmartID and SmartSync solutions enable consumer electronics devices to provide more engaging content and offer other outstanding user experiences.

The Audible Magic solutions enhance Trickplay’s platform in two specific ways. SmartID, for example, enables developers to recognize content that is being played, whether the content is delivered from terrestrial broadcast, cable, Internet streaming, Blu-ray, or another source. And SmartSync synchronizes events to the media being watched with frame-to-frame accuracy.

Sling Media’s place-shifting technology, which until now has been limited to the company’s retail devices, DISH Network customers and the SlingLoaded pre-integrated platforms offered via parent company EchoStar (e.g. EchoStar Europe), is going to be made available more widely. At CES the company has announced the integration of the Sling Media SDK into Broadcom’s latest set-top box SoC (System on Chip) platforms, notably the Broadcom BCM7425 Dual HD Transcoding MoCA Gateway SoC. The collaboration paves the way for manufacturers of STBs and CE devices to offer place-shifting capabilities so consumers can shift their content to any compatible device via the Internet.

On the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show, Google makes a splash with key partnerships that promise a strong year for the battered connected TV platform.

Just a few days ago, you could probably forgive any of Google TV's product managers who might consider cashing in their chips in Las Vegas next week at the Consumer Electronics Show. But what a difference a few days makes.

Sling Media Inc. and Broadcom Corp.  today announced the integration of the Sling Media SDK into Broadcom’s latest set-top box system-on-a-chip platforms. The collaboration paves the way for manufacturers of STBs and CE devices to offer consumers a solution to enjoy watching their favorite television content wherever they want on whatever device they want, with an Internet connection.

Sling Media’s licensed software ecosystem supported on the Broadcom BCM7425 Dual HD Transcoding MoCA Gateway SoC gives users a full-featured multi-screen, multi-platform viewing solution.

Sling Media’s pioneering placeshifting technology coupled with Broadcom’s leadership in high performance STB platforms enable a wide range of content with a consistent viewing experience for service operators’ customers who demand a simple, high-quality way to watch television on the go.

ON THE SAME TOPIC, SEE : http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2012/01/the-android-based-hdtv-higher.php

Civolution announces that it will be demonstrating its new real-time content triggering service at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The new service enables synchronized ad delivery to second screen applications by leveraging Civolution’s extensive broadcast monitoring infrastructure of more than 1,700 TV channels worldwide, of which more than 1,250 are national and local channels in North America covering all 210 Designated Market Areas.

The new content-triggering service complements Civolution’s award-winning SyncNow - 2nd screen synchronization solution. Upon client-based identification through audio watermarking or fingerprinting, the SyncNow product enables identification and synchronization between broadcast, on-demand or recorded television content and interactive applications on devices such as a tablets, smartphones or laptops. Additionally, Civolution is providing automatic content recognition technology for integration with smart TVs, enabling all the value-adding opportunities of SyncNow on the larger main screen of the TV set itself.

At CES 2012 ViXS Systems Inc. will be demonstrating PacketVideo’s TwonkyServer 6.0 connected home solution running on it’s XCode 4208 NAS SoC.TwonkyServer from PacketVideo makes finding media and playing it back on connected home and mobile devices as simple as drag and drop. Adopting DLNA and other networking and streaming software this solution provides compatibility with more devices and file formats than any other connected home solution in the industry making the sharing of photos, video and music a seamless experience for beginners and experts alike.

On show at CES will be the TwonkyServer running on a video NAS base platform based on the XCode 4208. The XCode 4208 performs all the data and video NAS functions and hardware audio and video transcoding functions. The TwonkyServer is performing all the home networking and streaming management functions to DLNA based clients.